NCT Classes

Hi Girlies

OK, this is probably more for the British/expat girls, but I've been looking at doing NCT (National Childbirth Trust) classes, only to find out that they will cost me the best part of £150 (over $300) - I could almost furnish the nursery for that, so I am wondering if they tell me more than (a) the NHS class I'll be doing for free and (b) what I know from BB. I know it sounds awful, first baby and all that, but we just don't have the money to spend on classes that drugs aren't good and breastfeeding is, especially when I already know that! I already have books and magazines that demonstrate how to BF and I can't see how someone talking me through it pre-baby would help more. I just know DH will kick up a fuss about it, although I would love to do the classes we really can't afford them. I have no real childbirth fears (save that someone pumps me full of drugs against my will, but then I can't imagine anyone actually doing that any more), I've spent so long telling people that babies are meant to be born and women have been doing it for millions of years that if anyone even mentions "but what if you..." I am ready to bite their heads off!

Sorry, this isn't a vent for my anger about stupid people (cough*DH*cough) thinking you need hospitals to give birth - or rather, I need a hospital for a very low risk birth. This is just to ask if you learn anything really exciting and new on these courses that I won't learn from the NHS/BB.

The NHS classes are run at my GPs by the midwives, although one of those is to look around the hospital I believe: I have to make my own appointment to look around the birthing centre. Hopefully this will cement in DH the desire for me not to have to share a ward with other people! The hospital/birth centre don't run their own classes, it's all done by the GP and local midwives. And DH is now keen for an intervention-free birth (I don't know why, but he may have picked that up from me!) so I don't think that the courses will change his mind.

Only one problem with DH on BB - when will I get a chance to chat to you all? And then you'll read his posts and my posts on things like spelling and grammar and wonder (or wounder, as DH would have it) how he's still alive.

The NCT classes are private ones, but they won't feature the midwives looking after me and they won't necessarily know anything about the hospital policies or the birth centre policies. It's just really to get a non-NHS view of birth as they don't seem to like me not wanting the hospital or drugs. I just need to know if the NCT classes are much different! (Or if BB is way better, as I suspect.) We'd be attending both sets of classes at the same time, you see, around November-December-January.

I'm doing my birthing centre classes at the moment Ryn, and while I still have more to go, so far I've seemed to know more than average, and I think that's a combo of books & belly belly, which allows me to ask my midwives informed questions. And one of my birth support people is a student midwife, so I can get her to find things out for me as well.

I think that the hospital classes are invaluable for finding out what to expect, what their values are, how they do things, what their policies and statistics are. And general info.
But I do appreciate that it would totally suck to pay for extra classes where you find info that you've already researched for yourself.
Can you call the NCT people and ask them what they cover in their course? They might have a week by week breakdown of what they teach that you could check out.

Sorry I can't help you with some more localised info! Good luck figuring it out!

Ryn, my anti-natal classes at the hospital were "good" in as much as they gave me the opportunity to look round the hospital, but aside from that, I learnt nothing at all......they were private health funded, and covered all the basics, but nothing you couldn't read in a book/find out from BB.

Certainly from a breastfeeding perspective, the help you'll need with that is, IMO, a lot of pre-reading for confidence, then, more importantly, support and help once your baby arrives.

If I had my time again, I woudn't bother with the private classes.........

Well, it's all looking like a moot point now as DH would be wanting me to move half-way through the classes! (Possibly on my own as he'll be already living in the North and working.) Plus he's not going to be around for some of the classes if he is working in the North. Not sure how this will work out with the NHS classes, although I'm entitled to them I'm not sure how I feel him not being there or me changing midwives after getting to know "my" midwives... I can't even book a birth centre or Christening now!

Good thing what I *really* want is just to hop in the shower one morning with a stick between my teeth and hop out with a baby in my arms/on my breast! I must confess, I am still hoping for that, knowing it won't really happen, but it certainly beats someone dashing me to a horrid hospital that I don't want to be anywhere near. I really don't like hospitals.